


From the True Horizon

by SyllableFromSound



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Beach Summer Fun Buddies, Dragons, Platonic Relationships, Rating May Change, decided to keep the summary as is lmao, her life still sucks tho, lapis is a literal water witch in this, lots and lots of lapis & steven friendship fluff to soothe my soul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyllableFromSound/pseuds/SyllableFromSound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As in the ocean, the deepest parts of the forest are also its darkest and its strangest. Only the very brave or the very desperate will seek the unknown magic there. But the woods could be a sanctuary for two very different fugitives, escaping the threats of a vengeful dragon and impending war.</p>
<p>Witch AU inspired by the artwork of @asktheblueoceangem on Tumblr. Updates every two weeks through the end of September!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this took longer than expected to write...anyway, thanks so much for clicking on this story! This will be my first (very) long fic in quite some time and I will do my utmost to stick to a regular updating schedule. Please comment with any questions, concerns, or other opinions regarding the story. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, like I said, asktheblueoceangem.tumblr.com largely inspired this fic. Please go check out the blog if you haven't already because I promise you won't be disappointed.

_The last time she had come close to a human, the features of the forest and country had been softened and silenced under a cover of snow. The winters in the area had garnered a reputation for ferocity, and this frigid night remained true to form. Adorned in whiteness, the world seemed anonymous now, a slate wiped clean._

_Had Lapis looked up, she could have watched downy flakes slowly drift earthward, like faded stars falling from the night sky._

_But she couldn't spare a moment to admire the scene, not when every bit of her attention had turned to the dark shape before her. Even through the dim illumination, even through the adrenaline and exhaustion that blurred her vision, she recognized it as the form of a small person. The figure faced her direction, unmoving._

_She'd been spotted._

_The still air suddenly began to crackle with the sound of snow crunched underfoot as the figure began to move towards her. Reflexively, her hands, which had hovered poised above the ground, grew claw-like as her fingers tensed and curved inward. Snow hardened to shards of ice beneath her palms, springing and twisting up from the barren ground._

_"Don't." The word left her lips wrapped in a growl._

_At her warning, the sound of the footfall ceased and was replaced by a high, slightly lisping voice. "Don't what?"_

_"Don't come any closer!" As she'd suspected, it was a child, but that fact hardly put her any more at ease. If a boy this small were out here, no doubt, his caretakers would not be far behind. She would not have him seeing her and then blabbing to anyone about what he'd witnessed._

_"Why not?" he called, more loudly this time--likely loud enough to alert anyone nearby. Instead of answering, she raised her right hand, gritting her teeth against the jolt of pain that coursed like electricity through her chest. She was rewarded when the mounds of snow in front of her joined together and transformed into a column of water many times her height._

_A quivering wracked her limbs, but her voice did not shake when she demanded, "Stay away." The water flowed and swirled ceaselessly but retained its crudely cylindrical shape, fluid but firm. It would obstruct his view of her and, more importantly, it would be enough to scare him away. Even the most curious and foolhardy of children would balk at the sight of a looming tower rising from the ground in a matter of moments._

_Or at least, that's what she thought. Instead, the brat started towards her all the more quickly, clumsily jogging through the snow._

_Her initial shock at the small boy's gall quickly gave way to renewed anxiety. Soon he'd be right in front of her, soon he'd be close enough to see her for who she was, the tattered robes and unmistakable blue skin, and then one way or another he'd get the word out, and already she could see the dogs and humans and witches alike set upon her, could feel them at her back just as clearly as she could feel the wound that still dripped blood beneath her neck..._

_She sent the pillar crashing down, down, down to the ground. It landed just short of where the boy stood._

_Silence and rising clouds of white powder filled the freezing air in the wake of the great bang. The light particles of snow stayed tensely suspended like disturbed dust, as though time had stopped. She simply stood and stared, watching it for a moment. Then she fell to her knees, and at last sat down in the coldness. The large white puffs that escaped her lips displayed the labor of her heavy breathing. Stupid, to waste a spell of such power on a young boy, when she'd already grown fatigued from days and nights of running. When she'd hardly done any magic in nearly two decades. She knew very well that she would have to keep moving, but now she had drained herself in a matter of minutes._

_When she looked up, though, she sighed in relief. At least he was gone now._

_Every moment she spent in this exposed place, she knew, put her at greater risk for discovery. But her body refused to move for her. Her blood pounded in her ears, hard enough to drive out her thoughts, and a dizziness rapidly overcame her, causing darkness to hover at the edge of her sight..._

_"Hi!"_

_She jumped back in shock. Her arm instinctively went up to guard her face, although it would do her little good in this state. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting in the snow or how she'd failed to hear the approach of the sudden speaker, but something heavy and cold settled in her gut when she heard the single word. Her stunned mind slowly registered the image that had appeared a few feet in front of her. A pair of chubby cheeks, as round and soft as the curls of dark hair that framed them. A pair of small hands, which cradled a glass bottle. A boy._

_"You fell," the child stated earnestly, as though it were news to her. "I brought you this!" He thrust out the container in his hands, causing the thick liquid inside to slosh once. When she did not immediately react, he yanked out the cork that topped it and began to hold it up to her face. "It tastes pretty bad, but Pearl gives it to me when I'm sick and a lot of times it--"_

_Lapis grabbed his outstretched arm with one hand and snatched away the bottle with the other. Judging by his yelp and the tears shining in his black eyes, she'd been unnecessarily rough, but damn if she cared at the moment. "Not until I know what it is," she hissed._

_She took her time examining the bottles contents, which, she first noticed, had a red-brown color in the moonlight. Hesitantly, she sniffed the inside, and received the acrid but familiar scent of blood mixed with a variety of crushed herbs. It was, in fact, a simple healing potion consisting mostly of snake livers. It was nothing special--she'd produced similar concoctions countless times in the past--but it would likely give her enough energy to restore a bit of her magic and allow her to go on. She gave the boy a last cautious glance before swallowing the contents of the bottle. Almost instantly, the aching in her muscles began to ebb away like receding waves, and the fogginess cleared from her vision._

_He watched all the while, though he'd become more wary, looking downward as he spoke again. "Um...aren't...you cold?"_

_"Not really," she muttered before looking him up and down. His small body had begun to tremble from the chill, and it was no wonder, since he'd wandered outside in a nightgown. "Aren't you?"_

_He shook his head vigorously. "Nope! But I can get you a blanket if you want!"_

_The offer, combined with the fact that he appeared to be making a concentrated effort to stop shivering, almost tempted her lips into a grin. "You're the one who should be getting warm," Then, tentatively: "Where do you live, anyway?"_

_Eagerly, he turned and pointed to a dark shape sitting at the crest of the small down, uphill from the two of them. "That's my house!" He seemed peculiarly willing to disclose such information to a stranger, but more importantly, the structure was far too close for comfort. While she may not have been very familiar with human biology, she determined that this one could not be more than five years old. At any moment, the little one's caretakers could come out to look for him. Moreover, if the potion could act as any indication, he likely had at least one witch serving as a guardian._

_She finally released his arm and stood with only a touch of unsteadiness. "I have to go."_

_To her surprise, she felt a tug at her sleeve. "Wait! You have to show me how you do the thing first!"_

_"The what?"_

_"The thing where you shoot the water a million feet in the air!" He threw his arms up for effect. "Can you please do it again?"_

_Lapis stared at him. "You know witches, don't you? You must've seen water magic before."_

_"No I haven't! Not ever!"_

_Realization crept up from behind and washed over her all at once. "Oh...no, I guess you wouldn't have. Did they ban it?"_ Because of me? _she wondered silently, bitterness tainting the thought._

_The boy shrugged. He had already turned away from her to crouch down and study the impression in the snow, which had been left by the now-vanished water column. "I dunno. I don't get to meet new witches that much. They come to our house sometimes, but I always have to play outside." He suddenly sprung to his feet again. "But I wanna see your magic!"_

_"I don't have enough energy to build something like that pillar again, though."_

_He bit his lip and furrowed his bushy brow, as though in deep contemplation, only to look back at her a moment later. "When you come back here, then? You'll be able to do it then, right?"_

_Lapis could only stare at him. Those wide eyes glowed with the reflected brightness of the stars and the moon, and they seemed to probe her as well for any light that she could offer, any hope that she could give him._

_His eagerness made her almost ashamed to tell the truth. "Uh...well, if everything goes as planned, I won't be coming back for...for a very long time."_ Forever, hopefully.

_Thankfully, he didn't look quite as downcast as she thought he might. "Okay. But you'll still do it whenever you come back?"_

_"Y-yeah, alright." She hesitated, then knelt to match his level. "You don't know who I am, do you?"_

_He shook his head. Of course not._

_"Well, you can't tell anyone you saw me, okay? I could...be in a lot of trouble if you did. Will you promise not to say anything?"_

_"Okay."_

_She took hold of his arm again to pull him a bit closer, though she did not press down nearly as hard this time. "I mean it. Do you swear to it?"_

_The child fixed her with a curious look, but quickly nodded. "Yeah. As long as you keep your promise!"_

_This time, she could not stop the chuckle that rose in her throat. "You're pretty trusting, huh? Didn't anyone tell you not to talk to strangers?"_

_Brightly, he answered, "They do! All the time!"_

_She smiled again before standing. "Go on, you need to warm up."_

_"I will. Bye!"_

_She watched him scurry up the hill until he disappeared into the darkness. After he was no longer in her sight, she slowly stretched her hand over the landscape and mustered the bit of magical power that she had regained. Within moments, the footprints and the imprint of the pillar were erased, the indents being seamlessly filled with new snow. The hillside appeared smooth and clean and undisturbed once more. She continued to cover her tracks as she made her way toward the woods._

 

**\-----8 years later------**

  
"Watcha making?!"

A strangled, startled yelp escaped Pearl's mouth at Steven's sudden shout. He watched a half-filled flask slip from her stiffened hands, and without a thought he took a running leap forward. He grunted as he hit the ground and caught the object in a slide as he would a ball. The round glass bottom fit securely in his hands, smooth and satisfying.

Triumphantly, he stood and proffered the bottle, clods of earth dropped in droves from his freshly stained shirt. "Got it!"

Pearl scurried up to him and frantically scanned every part of his small body for signs of injury. Then, apparently convinced that he was not bleeding or permanently crippled, she released a long-held breath in the form of a sigh. "Well, that's another shirt for the rag pile." She took the nearly spilled potion from his hands and, in a decidedly brighter tone, asked, "Is there anything you need?"

"Oh, yeah! Have you seen Peridot? I can't find her anywhere inside, and sometimes she likes to come in here and sit under the spindle tree."

"Well, I'm afraid I harvested some of the wool from that tree a little while ago and I didn't see her there." Already sitting back at her work bench, she spoke over the rhythmic grating of pestle against mortar, unleashing the sweet and peppery scent of marjoram as she carefully crushed the leaves. "Did you check under the blind man's bush? Last time she sat under there, the sap dripped all over her and turned her invisible, remember?"

Steven chuckled. "We couldn't find her for two days, remember?"

"Why don't you go take a look? Oh, that reminds me! Would you bring me back one of the seed pods from that bush while you're over there?"

"No problem!"

By now, Steven had more than memorized the location of nearly every rare plant that populated the greenhouse. In the near decade that Pearl had been caring for them, she had barely moved any from their original positions. So he was not in the surprised in the least when, as he made his way toward the desired bush, he looked at a leaf larger than his own head and found his own reflection peering back at him. An adaptation of the mirror bush, he'd been told, since hungry creatures would be deterred upon seeing their own faces staring back at them. A similar principle applied to the butterfly alder that stood nearby, whose tiny, scale-like leaves grew in patterns resembling the vibrant wings of poisonous insects. Next along the path was a tree that appeared to be covered in peach fuzz instead of bark, and he gave it a wide berth--as a child, he'd learned through personal experience that the hair-like structures were bristles primed to stick in the hand and burn for days even after removal. Potted plants with roots spreading over the rim. Fruits in the shapes of globes and raindrops and corkscrews. And a little ways down, there were Steven's favorites--the hermit's head blossoms, whose multi-colored petals, rather than falling off, continued to grow like hair until they trailed along the ground.

Each fern and flower could be found exactly where he had last left it, reliable and unchanging as old friends. And yet, even in the midst of such familiarity, he could easily pretend that he were venturing into places unknown. The greenery enclosed him on all sides and absorbed him into a different world, cutting him off from the sights and sounds of the outside. Even the air he breathed in this other realm was different, laden with a disorienting cocktail of fragrances from flowers and fruit. As he brushed aside large leaves in his path and ducked under thorn-adorned branches, he imagined himself on a trek through some previously unexplored section of the forest, from which these plants had originally come. He thought of doing what his mother had done years ago, transporting this living and growing collection from the depths of the enchanted wood that lay west of the house. He thought of going deeper than even she had dared...

Steven was broken from his reverie upon spotting the squat form of the blind man's bush. After grabbing a few of the seeds from the shrub and fruitlessly searching for Peridot, he hurried back to Pearl. "So what's this supposed to do?" he asked, watching her quickly mash up his contribution.

"I'm experimenting with a new protection charm." She never turned her eyes away from the mixture. "If it works, we'll be able to produce a lot of it quickly, hopefully enough for all of the humans in town. That would hold off that horrible dragon. For awhile, anyway."

He sensed the quieter tone of her last three words. They betrayed doubt, a sputtering sense of confidence that had been worn down by years of considering her magic ineffective. She was resigned, he thought, to the idea that this potion would be a temporary solution at best and an immediate failure at worst.

He had an urge to comfort her, but before he could find the words, a clamor assaulted his ears. At the sound of the crash, he instinctively ducked and closed his eyes, and upon opening them again, he saw the ground glittering dangerously, glinting with specks of shattered glass. A little ways off, larger shards littered the floor, and in amongst them lay the quite unassuming culprit--a sharp stone that had been tossed through the window, shattering both the silence and the greenhouse wall.

Both stared stunned at the scene, unmoving. Then Pearl spoke suddenly. "Amethyst again?!" She stomped, rather theatrically, over to the new, starburst-shaped hole in the side of the glass structure and momentarily looked outside for said purple witch. "I can't believe how careless she's gotten to be! Steven, do me a favor and grab some handfuls of sand from that pot over there."

He shook his head, as though to dislodge the shock that still remained in his mind. Quickly, he retrieved the sand and stood back to watch her next actions with rampant eagerness.

A dainty flick of her long fingers drew a thin line of sand up out of his cupped hands, much in the same way that Steven had witnessed some of the townspeople coaxing neat threads out of nebulous wool clusters. The tiny grains flowed together through the air, like a ribbon on the wind, until Pearl guided them to the damaged part of the glass pane. Brows furrowed in concentration, she silently directed the sand to fill in the hole seamlessly and then caused it to glow red momentarily. When she at last lowered her hand, the light dimmed, and the opening in the window had been replaced by a transparent surface.

Steven grinned. "I love it when you make glass. That's definitely the coolest spell you do!"

"Oh! Well...thank you, I suppose. Although it's nothing, quiet honestly!" Her words sounded disjointed as she spoke between nervous giggles. She changed the subject quickly. "Anyway, tell me next time you see Amethyst, alright? She's going to hear it from me!"

"You sure Amethyst did it? I mean, usually after she pranks us, she comes in to brag about it right away. And I don't think she'd throw a rock that big if she knew we were in here."

He had barely gotten his last word out when she responded, "Who else would it be?" Her voice had grown slightly more high-pitched than normal, and judging by the way she turned around immediately to speak to him again, it seemed that she didn't intend for him to answer the question. "I have an idea! Would you mind helping me again?"

"Yeah, sure," he answered slowly, forcing his curiosity to the back of his mind. "Do you need more help with magic stuff? I could help you out some more with that potion!"

"That's not it, but it's something just as important!" His excitement rose, like a bird on the wind. Then it fell, like a bird on the wind that had just been blown straight into a window. Pearl had dropped a wicker basket into his hands. "Would you go out to shop for food? I have a list in there. I wrote down every item we need and the shop where you'll be able to find it. Oh! And when you pick out the fruits, make sure they're a little firm, so they'll be ripe by the time we get around to eating them. You can do that, right, Steven?"

Steven continued to hold the basket out at arms length and glanced up at her. "You want me to go into town?"

Pearl had already rushed back to her work table. "Well, yes. You like going down there, don't you? You can talk to all those human friends of yours."

The word "no" weighed heavy on his tongue, just behind his lips. He managed to diffuse it as a long exhale. "Yeah. I'll be back soon!"

"And don't leave without your coat this time!"

"It's hot out!"

But she had practically leapt over to him already and handed him the bulky garment. "But you never know when Malachite's going to stir up a storm! That dragon's been more active than usual lately. I have a bad feeling she'll give us quite a bit of nasty weather today."

"Yeah, that'd be a real drag." He waited a moment. "A real drag!" Another pause. "Because she's a drag-on!"

Pearl froze briefly before letting out a long, long breath. "It's a good thing you're cute, Steven."

He laughed as he backed out the door. "See you later!"

Once outside, the humidity instantly struck him. It instantly seemed a touch more difficult to breathe, as the muggy air felt more sluggish in his lungs. Within a minute, sweat filmed his brow, as though the overladen air had deposited some of its moisture onto him. It was nothing unexpected. Malachite's presence near the area meant that Thycai-Bec never saw a day without moisture in the forecast. One could always count on being drenched, either by the precipitation or by one's own sweat. But he had never grown accustomed to the feeling of the air wrapped around him like a hot fog making his movements slightly more sluggish, trying to trap him.


	2. Chapter 2

The home of the farrier was not among the locations that Pearl had written down on her list of errands. The three witches of Thycai-Bec, on the rare occasion that they could justify leaving the town to its own devices, traveled by broomstick, and so had little need to visit that sagging, sad house that sat at the end of the main road. Steven, who always felt the need for a friendly face after even a short journey through town, stopped at that sagging, sad house anyway.

Well before he reached the old shack, he spotted the hunched form of his father at work in the little corral. The man was bent over the hoof of a bay gelding, as though the relentless heat of the day had piled up upon his back and weighed him down. Steven resisted the urge to call out--he knew better than to risk startling the horses his dad cared for, especially when their powerful legs were so precariously close to the old man's head. Instead, he made his way up the perpetually muck-laden path leading up to the house, deftly dodging the areas where he knew the mud to be deepest.

The squelch of his footsteps was enough to make Greg look up and smile. "Hey there, kiddo!"

"Hey there, adulto!" Steven hopped up onto a wooden slat of the corral fence and leaned over to speak to the man on the other side. "Who's that you're working on?"

"Archibald. Archie. He's the Fryman's old boy, don't you remember? I just got some shoes on him--it was about time he got some new ones, too." After a last inspection, he let go of the animal's hoof and patted its dark neck before allowing it to trot off. "He was pretty patient with me."

"Good boy!" Steven screeched at the horse, who barely flicked his ears in response. "Hey, do you have Frisk around anywhere?"

"Who?"

"My favorite horse! You used to trim her hooves all the time! She belongs to the Millers and she's roan with a little white triangle on her face. And she likes to eat dandelions. And sometimes my hair if I get too close."

"Oh." Greg turned quickly to stare at his son. He took time to catch his breath after the punishment of a workday in the harsh humidity, composing strength within himself before he attempted to approach the innocent question. "Well...the Millers sold that horse and then left town weeks ago. They wanted to get out fast, I think." He had begun to rub his neck and glanced at the ground, appearing at once apologetic and eager to change the subject entirely. He avoided eye contact.

But Steven kept his eyes intently on his father, unsatisfied. "They just left? They've been here forever, though. I didn't even hear that they were gonna go."

"Well, they got the money and thought it'd be best to go to when they had the chance. So there goes another of my customers. Can't say I blame them, though, do you?" Greg gave him a sideways glance, then went on when he gave no answer. "Truth is, kid, most of the folks who could leave got out years ago."

"After Malachite came." As Steven faced the ground, his words came out slightly muffled, as though the sounds had become partially buried by the muck beneath his feet.

"Nobody wants to live with a dragon hanging over their heads." He bent to scrape at the dirt caked onto his leathery knees, and when he straightened, a renewed brightness could be seen in his expression. Sweat trickled down his ruddy face and settled into his dimples and laugh lines, soft arcs around his lips that echoed the shape of his smile. The reflection of the moisture in the light added to the man's bright aura. "Anyway, I know you didn't visit to talk about that. Listen, I got a bit of money myself recently, so I got us something. Why don't you go sit on the porch while I grab it?"

"Alright!" Steven leapt down from the fence and jogged the short distance over to the house. Gingerly, he lowered himself onto the step leading up to the front door--the large hole in one section of the termite-ridden wood attested to what would happen were he not careful. Though the thick air still enfolded him uncomfortably, in the shade of the small porch, it felt almost tolerable. Peering up, he saw the rearing, bulbous heads of tall, snowy clouds in the distance. Far off in the direction from which he had come, rising like a wavering pencil line from the crest of the small hill he called home, a thin ribbon of smoke rose against the sheet of blue sky.

"Amethyst set the house on fire again?" Greg asked casually as he came up from behind.

"That or some of Garnet's lightning bolts got loose." Steven turned to grin up at his father. "Whatcha got?"

"Oh, someone's favorite dessert."

The boy stared. "You didn't."

"I did."

"Sugar melon!"

"With extra sugar, just the way you like it."

Steven seized the nearly foot-long slice of fruit that Greg proffered. "Wow, I can't believe you even got real sugar! And even--wait, did you put pepper on here?"

"What? Oh, whoops." Greg reached over to brush black flecks off the melon. "Sorry, I was keeping these in the cupboard. Guess some bits of the mold in there got on in. No worries!"

Undeterred, Steven crunched down on the watery, cotton-white flesh of the fruit, allowing the almost overwhelming sweetness to flood his mouth. "Wish we could do this all the time," he managed to say between bites.

Greg wiped his mouth against the back of his hand. "I used to get them a lot. They were dirt-cheap back when people around here used to grow them. The weather's too unpredictable for them now, though. Fields flood too much."

Steven ran his front teeth across the inside of the melon rind, focused on scraping up as many residual bits of fruit as he could get. "Uh-huh."

"But, you know, we could...well, I was thinking that the two of us could have all the melons we want if we packed up and went somewhere else. You know what I mean?"

Slowing his chewing, he turned to his father and shook his head. "Nope."

Nervous chuckles tumbled clumsily from Greg's mouth. Again, he insistently avoided his boy's prodding gaze. "Well, I...I thought that the witches would tell you, but I guess I understand them wanting to put it off..."

"Put what off?" His voice had risen slightly in pitch and impatience.

"Well, Steven, we're...we're going to be leaving, too." Greg waited a moment, then continued when his son proved too shocked to speak. "I was planning on going to Waqontau. It's around 46 days by wagon from here, give or take, well out of Malachite's range, and I've got plenty of money right now to pay someone to get us there. And you'd like it! Like I said, the food's amazing in some of these places where the dragon hasn't hit yet--it's all fresh, since it doesn't have to be shipped in. And there are all kinds of cool plants and animals all over the place that you've never even seen. They've still got butterflies there! You remember me telling you about butterflies, don't you, Steven?"

His father continued to monologue at an increasingly quick pace. And yet, the more he spoke, the less Steven heard, as though the older man's voice had slipped into a frequency too low for his ears to register. Instead, he sensed the sound as a troubling thrum that shook him. Understanding had gradually begun to emerge in his mind like the vague, dark form of a beast beneath the water's surface.

Hesitantly, he finally asked, "But...I mean, that does sound nice, but don't you think it'll be weird to go when we've never lived anywhere but here? And how are the witches going to come with us? Don't they need to stay and make sure everything is okay in town?"

Greg stopped for a moment, unsmiling. He then spoke as steadily and slowly as he could, as though Steven were three rather than thirteen and would struggle to understand. "You're right. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are still in charge of this place and they need to stay here and protect it. That's why when I said we're moving, I meant just you and I. The three of them can't come."

The suspicion that had been lurking in the back of his mind suddenly leapt to the forefront as a hideous realization. He imagined the future with a terrible vividness. Kept from the home where he'd spent his childhood. Separated from the three women who'd taught him the most essential things in his life, and more. His very body rebelled against the idea, as he jumped up from his seat before he knew what he was doing. "Wait, no! Dad, please, I know things around here haven't been great lately and you've been getting less business and all, but...but there's got to be some way to help that doesn't involve moving. Why not ask the witches? They could figure something out. A-and I'll try to help too! Please, if I told them I had to go, they wouldn't be able to take--"

"Steven," Greg interrupted--his voice was abnormally grave. "The witches were the ones who scraped together the money for me to leave."

Steven did everything in his power not to accept the plain fact that had been lain at his feet. He searched for any alternative, anything that could help soften the blow of the cold hard truth. Perhaps he had misheard. Perhaps his father was lying, or joking--but no, that was not the face he wore when he joked, and nor would he ever lie about something so solemn. Maybe there was something he was missing, someone to reassure him that the three women he loved and who had raised him were not, in fact, scheming to cast him out of his own home.

In the end, he simply collapsed back onto the dangerously creaking step, suddenly subdued.

"Kid," Greg sighed, "I'm sorry I can't make this better. That we can't make it better. Things would be different if your mom were still around."

"You always said she loved this place," Steven murmured into the crook of his elbow, arms crossed over his knees. "So how come you wanna leave?"

"Well, she did. And she always did whatever she could to protect it. She had the power to do it, too, even after the dragon came. There was this one time, during a storm, she actually lifted whole crop fields out of the ground to keep them from being washed away." A slow smile had been growing on the older man's lips as he spoke, but in an instant it sank again. "Almost everyone trusted her. But the fact is that things have gone downhill since she died. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl don't have the kind of power needed to fight Malachite--nobody does, really. There's no food, no jobs, and now...well, I don't think they wanted you knowing this, but since you asked why we're moving anyway, I think you deserve to know. Some of the surrounding towns have overthrown the witches that have been controlling them for decades--centuries, even--and now people around here have been whispering about doing the same." Steven's eyes widened. "Yeah...the way everyone sees it, a rogue witch summoned Malachite in the first place, and now the witches who are supposed to protect this place don't have the power to stop what's going on. Nobody trusts witches anymore, or the people who support them."

"Is that why nobody in town will talk to me anymore?"

Steven muttered the words without thinking, and for a moment he worried that his father would question what he had said. But Greg either hadn't heard or had gotten distracted by the rumbling that suddenly shook the air.

The people of Thycai-Bec had all learned to recognize the storms that had been caused by Malachite, as opposed to the natural phenomena. Weather caused by the dragon formed quickly, before most had time to react--in this case, in the short amount of time that it had taken for Steven and Greg to have a conversation. The green-tinged clouds would roil in circular motions, stirred up as though they were the contents in the pot of a sinister potion. And whereas natural storms would always approach from the eastern horizon, the tempests caused by the dragon would seem to form out of thin air, directly over the town.

"Looks like it's gonna be a big one," Greg said, raising his voice over the rapidly building wind. "I've gotta get the horse into the stable. Steven, you get inside!"

Steven looked up, and then at his father, and then once more at the menacing sky. "Dad, I...I have to get home. I promise I'll be careful!"

"Steven, wait!" But he had already taken off down the path towards the hill.

Steven had learned to ignore many things whenever he made his way through the heart of town. As he raced home, trying to outpace the first raindrops that pelted him like the pebbles preceding a rockslide, he could ignore the beige plants whose stems bent and curled in on themselves, killed by the choking excess of water over the past years. He could ignore the rotting doors of abandoned houses that lolled like dumb tongues on their creaking hinges, wagging in the growing gusts. But he could not ever bring himself to ignore the faces of his neighbors, the people with whom he had once been friends, as they turned away from his eye contact, retreating into their houses as they saw him. Worse, he could not ignore the glares from others, and the way their mouths opened into ugly black holes when they shouted unheard slurs at him that he could not hear above the wind.

* * *

He reached the house just as the rain had begun to fall steadily. Racing inside, he slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, concentrating on his breathing. For a moment, he simply remained in the relative silence and safety.

Then he felt the sensation of several pins sticking into his ankle all at once, accompanied by the sound of frantic and incessant meowing.

"Owowow! Peridot, no!" Steven reached down to carefully pry the yellow cat's claws from where they had dug into his leg, desperately clinging. He picked her up and carefully tucked her into his arms, but she continued her tirade, as though yelling at him for being gone so long.

In response, he stroked the tuft of fur that stuck up from the top of her head. "Shh...hey, Peri, it's okay. You weren't scared of that thunder, were you? Yeah, that's it, you're fine. Nothing's gonna come in here and get you!" The combination of his gentle words and long, slow petting eventually quieted her meowing and allowed her to settle, at least enough for her to stop shaking. "There you go. Good kitty!"

He did not keep stroking her for long, though. As his hand passed over her back, he felt the texture of soft fur abruptly interrupted by the sensation of scaly, flaking skin. The feline mewled in discomfort as he touched the bare spot. Quickly looking down at her, he saw with growing alarm that patches of raw, red flesh blotched her backside, oozing clear or pinkish liquid in places. The angry marks, edged by fur charred black, were plentiful near her backside, with the largest running down her hind legs. Burns.

"Peridot? What happened to you?!" She could only look up at him with wide emerald eyes.

With panic growing in his gut, he placed the cat back on the floor, where she struggled to stand on her injured back feet. He raced through each room of the house but, to his growing frustration, found no one. "Hang on! I'll get help!" he called before rushing outside once more.

By now, the rain had grown torrential, dripping down from his brow and pouring over his eyes to create a watery curtain that distorted his vision. Nevertheless, in the untimely darkness of the storm-ridden afternoon, he searched for the witches.

As he made his way to the field behind the house, lantern lights bobbed in the distance before him. They threw their light onto the forms of three familiar figures, which prompted Steven to move more quickly, in spite of the mud that attempted to drag him down and the rain that had begun to blind him. "Hey!" he screamed between cracks of thunder. "Hey, you guys!"

Amethyst was the first to hear and turn toward him, her stout form shrouded in a hooded cloak. "Steven? What are you doing out here?!"

"What? Steven, get back in the house, now!" Pearl's voice, shrill with panic as it cut through the hiss of falling rain.

He kept moving. "But--!"

"No! It's not safe for you to be out here right now."

"I don't care!" A roughness had begun to edge his voice as he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The witches called out to him again, but their voices were swallowed by another roar from the heavens. He continued on regardless. Suddenly, he had more in mind than getting Peridot healed. He leaned into the wind that spattered him with sheets of water--the more he pushed it back, the more he strove against it. Suddenly, he felt the need to be near the witches specifically because they insisted on pushing him away.

Without warning, a flash from the storm clouds illuminated the field with a light brighter and harsher than that of the sun. The lightning disappeared in an instant, but even in the brief moment in which it lit up the landscape, Steven saw enough to at last stop him in his tracks.

Scorch marks scarred the ground. They formed thick, dark lines standing out starkly against the surrounding grass, each of them longer than Steven was tall, each of them too straight to be natural. With a wave of nauseating horror, he realized that the marks formed great, hideous, black letters.

WITCHES MUST BURN.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao well this chapter took longer than I thought as you can see. I apologize for not making good on my promise to update every two weeks! My summer has been unexpectedly busy, but I don't want to make excuses. I'll do my best from now on to stick to the schedule I've made for myself.
> 
> Anyway, hope it was worth the wait! Sorry for the lack of Lapis in this chapter--I promise this will be the exception rather than the rule in this fic. Also, in case anyone was excited to see Peridot and then disappointed by her being a cat, fear not! She's still going to be significant to the plot regardless.
> 
> Thank you so much for your support thus far, especially those who have left comments and kudos! You really don't know how much each one encourages me!


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